The Island of Lana'i

Last time I visited Maui (back in 1999!), the MOST special part of the trip was a day cruise that we took over to the neighboring island of Lana'i on the Trilogy catamaran.  I just knew this was something I had to repeat and that both my mother and son would get to have the same great experience.



We set off from Lahaina Harbor around 10 AM and it was a gorgeous, perfect day.  Here's a view of Lana'i as we approached the island.  Unlike my last time, we weren't visited by any flying fish, but the other friends I remembered DID show up:  a HUGE pod of spinner dolphins!



One of the best things about viewing them from the catamaran is the ability to get right out over the pontoons as they ride the bow wave...

It looks like they are having so much fun!

And here's a video of some dolphin action:

 

 

 

 

But then it was time for us to hit the island and have some fun of our own so we waved good-bye to the dolphins and headed into the teeny-tiny harbor at Lana'i.  It has room for maybe 5 boats!

Well, that is...if you double-park them.  Trilogy sent over two catamarans full that day.  Ours is the one farther out.

On the way over, Ryan decided he wanted to try more than just snorkeling so we signed up for the SNUBA adventure.  I'm a certified scuba diver, but had never tried SNUBA before...

 





 ...Ryan took to it like he was part fish...

It allowed us to go down about 20-25 feet, but without all the bother of personal tanks AND it was age-appropriate for Ryan as I believe you have to be 13 or 14 to get even a resort-certification in scuba.

Gosh...that is a STYLISH look...

Yeah...Vogue cover model...that's me.

And here's a short video of our SNUBA adventure:

Jacques Cousteau with the underwater video I am obviously not so here are a few still shots...

 

Yellow tangs were plentiful...they kind of remind me of bananas, though.

This is a Moorish Idol trying to hide from my camera by darting into some coral.

And the super-star shot...Ryan spotted this eel diving for a hole at the base of this coral formation.  He was screaming so loud into his mask that he got some water inside it, but he got my attention quick enough to get this shot.  The eel disappeared within seconds so we were lucky to catch it!

After SNUBA, it was time for a van tour of the entire island and then the crew cooked us a wonderful outdoor lunch.

I had time to take a few pictures while lunch was cooking...like these gorgeous pink flowers.  They remind me of plumeria only larger and the plumeria I'm familiar with is white so I'm not sure if this is a different flower entirely or just a different variety of plumeria.

These flags are not only the Trilogy logo, but each one represents a letter of the alphabet and spells out "Trilogy."

Then it was time to return home.  The wind picked up slightly so the captain put up the sails and we sailed back to Maui instead of motoring.

There's Captain Ryan (cool sunglasses, kid!) driving the boat home.  He was supposed to get a 15 minute turn, but he was so enthusiastic that the crew was nice enough to let him drive almost the whole way back.

KJ